Patient Care and Music

Music can provide comfort


Music can help ease physical symptoms such as restlessness, agitation and sleeplessness and some physical discomfort


Music can help difficult emotions find comfort and solace as listeners rest into a musical presence


Music is deeply effective combined with massage, physical therapy, range of motion exercises, etc.


Music can be used as a calming presence during stressful medical procedures


Music can offer emotional nourishment for patient and family members


Music can simply offer enjoyment and pleasure

Music at the bedside is not a concert, but something for patients and families to simply allow in the environment without having to respond in any way.

There is a growing field called Music in Palliative Care. Many cultures over time, have used music at the bedside to help alleviate emotional, spiritual, psychological and even some physical suffering (some kinds of music can affect breathing and heart rates to a positive effect). Music at the bedside has been seeing a rebirth over the last two decades adding a dimension of care to other modalities in palliative care.

We are pleased, at Hospicare to be part of this new but old practice of using music in palliative care through the initiative of a music program. Jayne Demakos (www.jaynedemakos.com) is now on staff as Hospicare Music Director and is working with the staff to develop ways that music can meet the many needs of our patients, their families and close ones and also the wider community. Jayne is a longtime resident of Ithaca, is a harpist as well as a professional pianist. She is studying in “The Chalice of Repose Program” (www.chaliceofrepose.org) which is a music thanatology program out of Portland, Oregon.

In addition to working with patients and families one on one, using music to bring comfort and relief from such things as sleeplessness, restlessness, anxiety and some physical discomforts, we are integrating music into other programs such as the bereavement groups, life after loss, and Hospicare memorials. We are especially pleased to announce our Seasonal Musicales. We will have special music, one for each season.

We see these as a time for people from both the Hospicare community and the wider Ithaca community to come and have a kind of quiet refuge from the hustle, and listen to soothing and nourishing music. We will offer tea and refreshments and the atmosphere will be relaxed.

For the development of all music programs at Hospicare we are developing a roster of qualified musicians and are working carefully to match a musician who best meets the needs of each patient who requests music. We currently have a small roster of musicians and we hope to continue to add more. However, it is not quantity but quality that will be most useful here and sensitive musical attention.